It comprised 23 Sephardi Jews, refugees "big and little" of families fleeing persecution by the Portuguese Inquisition after the conquest of Dutch Brazil.
[3][1] The new Jewish community faced antisemitic opposition to their settlement from Director-General Peter Stuyvesant, as well as a monetary dispute with the captain of the St. Catrina, which required adjudication from the Dutch West India Company.
[3][1] The primary source document for their arrival is as follows:[4] Jacques de la Motthe, master of the Bark St .Charles, by a petition, written in French, requests payment of the freight and board of the Jews whom he bought here from Cape St. Antony according to agreement and contract in which each is bound in solidum, and that, therefore, whatever furniture and other property they may have on board his Bark may be publickly sold by order of the Court, in payment of their debt.
Solomon Pietersen, a Jew, appears in Court and says that nine hundred and odd guilders of the 2500 are paid, and that there are 23 souls, big and little, who must pay equally.
For this milestone, a Jewish Tercentenary Monument and flagstaff designed by Abram Belskie was placed on Peter Minuit Plaza in Manhattan's Battery,[7] and another Jewish Tercentenary Monument and flagstaff designed by Carl C. Mose with a wave-shaped relief bearing illustrations of the Four Freedoms as inspired by Hebrew Bible verses, as well as a conjectural image of the St. Catrina, was placed in St. Louis's Forest Park.